Henrietta Hamburger (aka “Sucky”) is looking very plump and tasty, and the time has come to put her into the freezer. I have arranged for the home kill to take place on the 11th of December so that we will have plenty of meat for the holiday season. Henrietta Hamburger has no idea that her days are numbered, and is happily eating spring grass with Rosie and Coco. Meanwhile I am making arrangements with the butcher and gathering ingredients for sausage and black pudding.
Sucky
Kevin, Owen, and I went for an evening walk in the cow paddock to admire the livestock. Owen loves the cows, and crows with excitement when he sees them. He loves to make mooing sounds like a cow! The other day, he managed to pet Rosie through the fence while I was hanging up the laundry nearby. We wish we could get a photo of Owen touching Rosie or Coco, but it’s proving quite difficult to have the camera ready at just the right moment! Kevin and I love to see Owen enjoying the animals on the Farmlet.
Becky and Owen
We are keeping a close eye on Coco, since her calf should be born any day now. Kevin has checked that plenty of salt is available, and has added a little apple cider vinegar to the water trough for her. What about Rosie’s calf? Well, it became apparent a while back that Rosie’s not in calf. (It’s really hard to tell when and whether Rosie’s in heat, and since we only had the bull here for a couple of weeks we knew it was possible she’d missed getting in calf.) Since we don’t milk Rosie, this is not the end of the world, but we certainly wish we were getting another calf to raise for the freezer. If a spare bull is in the area, we might try getting her in calf as soon as possible. Otherwise, we’ll probably just wait and let her and Coco both go to the Red Devon bull again when he comes to see our neighbours’ cows.
Sucky is very nice looking, and sports such a healthy looking hide. I wonder do you use the hide or does the home kill guy do anything with it?
Yeah, Sucky is in shockingly good condition. Part of the deal with the homekill guys is that they keep the hides as part of their compensation for the work. They wind up selling the hides to commercial leather makers.